Sumerian King List

The Sumerian King List, also known as the Chronicle of the One Monarchy, is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennium BC. It repetitively lists Sumerian cities, the kings who ruled there, and the lengths of their reigns, with early entries often assigning reigns of thousands of years. In its oldest known version, dated to the Ur III period, the list reflects a linear transfer of power from Kish, the first city said to receive kingship, to Akkad, while later versions from the Old Babylonian period list a larger number of cities among which kingship cycled. In its best known and best preserved version, recorded on the Weld-Blundell Prism, the list opens with a number of antediluvian kings said to have ruled before a great flood, after which kingship passed to Kish, and it closes with a dynasty from Isin that is also attested in other contemporary sources.